Battle of Saigon (1955)

The Battle of Saigon was a month-long battle for control of the Vietnamese capital of Saigon fought between Ngo Dinh Diem's South Vietnamese government and the Binh Xuyen crime syndicate from April to May 1955.

Upon the partition of Vietnam in 1955, the Catholic and anti-communist Vietnamese politician Ngo Dinh Diem was chosen by the US to lead South Vietnam, while North Vietnam was ruled by the communist Viet Minh leader Ho Chi Minh. While North Vietnam rebuilt its devastated lands, ravaged by the First Indochina War, South Vietnam was thrown into anarchy due to religious armies taking over several provinces in the South and the French-backed Binh Xuyen crime syndicate taking over Saigon. Emperor Bao Dai licensed the Binh Xuyen to control the national police, but Prime Minister Ngo Dinh Diem ordered them to surrender and come under state control, hoping to consolidate his power in South Vietnam and gain US military assistance (which had been recently cut off by President Dwight D. Eisenhower due to the regional instability). When the Binh Xuyen refused, Diem ordered a crackdown on 27 April. On mid-day of 28 April, a large part of the city was engulfed in house-to-house combat, forcing thousands of civilians onto the streets, where many of them were killed in the crossfire. On the first day of the fighting, 300 combatants were killed. However, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles suspended moves aimed at replacing Diem, and Eisenhower waited for the outcome of the fighting, ignoring J. Lawton Collins' warning that the battle in Saigon could cause a civil war. After 48 hours of combat, the South Vietnamese army gained the upper hand, and, by 2 May, the South Vietnamese government was holding the upper hand after seizing the Le Grand Monde casino and the Petrus Ky High School, the Binh Xuyen gang's two major strongholds. Binh Xuyen leader Le Van Vien was forced to flee to Paris with his ill-gotten gains, while the Binh Xuyen remnants were chased into the Mekong Delta near the Cambodian border. Diem then called a referendum which he rigged in order to win 98.2% of the vote, abolishing Bao Dai's imperial government and establishing a republic with himself as President.